Update, mid-February

• I'm going to try something new for the next couple weeks or so. I'm going to try to write some fiction. Possibly short stories, but honestly, I'm not sure at this moment. I really just wanna see where it takes me. I will post a short piece two to three times next week - just a first draft and kind of see how they taste. I am asking you, my two faithful readers, to leave honest, critical feedback. I'll give the stories some tweaking, re-write the pieces or jettison them all together (or some combination thereof) within the next two to three weeks (I may just have the working pieces stashed away on another blog in the meantime). I did something like this once, with poetry. That turned out pretty well (links up later). But I'm not much of a fiction writer - if at all - and most of my recent stuff has been non-fiction, memoirs and essays and etc. that I'm trying to figure out how to tell better. I kind of think that writing fiction may be a good way for me to be honest about myself and allow myself to tell a good story. But I could totally suck at it too.

• Just finished some baking (not good, since Jen gave up sugar for Lent. Good for her, but we didn't decide until the last minute what we were gonna give up for the 40 days. My wife's is much more adventurous and advantageous than my sacrifice. Yeah, red meat. Like I didn't already discover how to make turkey burgers taste almost like the real thing). It's for a bake sale (my first ever) at our church tomorrow. The cause? Send my wife and I (and about 16 others) to Colombia this summer. This is our first out of several planned fund-raisers. Hope it does well (of course).

• My wife and I both lost our jobs on Friday. Not a good day. We both knew that our present jobs were closing in on us and that we weren't good fits at this moment in our lives for them. But the timing of it really sucked. It could've been worse, though. We didn't have any money in January. Please pray for us, that we'll find the jobs where God wants us to be, that we'll be able to pay off our debts and afford health care and all of that.

Peace.